Thursday, December 4, 2008

Pure misogyny

Ever heard of purity balls? (here's that epic rant I was talking about)
From Wikipedia:
A purity ball is a formal event attended by fathers and their daughters. Purity balls promote virginity until marriage for teenaged girls, and are often closely associated with U.S. Christian churches, particularly fundamentalist churches.

Purity balls can vary in many particulars, but fathers who attend typically pledge to protect their young daughters' purity in mind, body and soul. Daughters are expected to remain virgins, abstaining from pre-marital sexual intercourse. A stronger father-daughter relationship is promoted as a means to affirm spiritual and physical purity.
Some Lefties might wonder why there aren't mother/son purity balls. But why should boys be held to the same 19th century standards of morality as girls? It's totally unfair; as the good Sheik said, we menfolk are totally subverted to the capricious whims of our ids, and possess not one iota of self control. Women, on the other hand, should definitely be held to ludicrous standards that only a saint could reach. Outrageous sexism is not just condoned, but endorsed in the Bible!

Which is the entire problem of purity; it's
only ever applied to girls. It's an outdated concept that is practiced almost universally; from genital mutilation in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, to abstinence and virginity (for girls only, of course) in the West. "...fathers who attend typically pledge to protect their young daughters' purity in mind, body and soul." How exactly do they plan on doing that? Do these fathers plan of educating their daughters on sex, what happens, how to prevent pregnencies and STDs and in general improve their general knowledge on sexuality? Or do these loving dads instead plan on keeping their daughters completely in the dark on reproductive health?

Take a guess. By purity's nature, boys are exempt. Jesus may have been second only to Mohammad in prudishness, but he seemed to apply his ludicrously high standards equally to both sexes. Try typing 'purity ball boy' or 'purity ball son' into Google: these sites are what you get.

This sums up the misogyny of purity; if there is a problem, it's the woman's fault. Period. If a woman flaunts herself, and a guy ogles her, then it's her fault that he has no self control. It is, as
the aforementioned Sheik stated, the failing of the uncovered meat rather then the violent, sociopathic cat. It should also be noted that 19th century misoyny is hardly confined to these religions-Judaism has its own branch of ultra-violence (of course, due to the fear that critisising branches of Judaism or certain Israeli policies makes you a neo-Nazi, such Taliban-style violence gets a free pass in the media).

It's always fascinated me how misogyny is so accepted in our society. One would think that after two waves of feminism, one would think that blatent sexism would be a little less tolerated in society. Could you imagine the outrage if someone stated that black people had to remain pure until they were married? Hell, it's all the same.

The logical conclusion of this ideology, of course, is this.

Cross-posted here and here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank God I'm an atheist.

I'm not sure if I agree with it, but it's certainly food for thought...but the idea that if someone's irrational enough to seriously take on board superstitious nonsense (e.g. God), they're irrational enough to commit atrocities because, by their own lights, they are rational is certainly food for thought.

Private 'Baldrick' Tom said...

Well, everybody thinks they're rational. It just depends on your what defines your rational. If it's "teh bible says so" then I wouldn't call it rational.
Also, given just how many points I made in that spiel, which one/s didn't you agree with?

Anonymous said...

Too comprehensive for my alcohol-addled brain I'm afraid...but I'm vehemently opposed to anyone interfering with the sex lives of anyone else.